I Could Stake A Claim
by teabizarre
Summary: She would always have gone to save Edward, even though she chose Jacob. Jacob/Bella/Edward.


**_I could stake a claim_ –Bella/Jacob dribbles #1**

_I don't mind the sun sometimes – Pepper, Butthole Surfers_

1

_(In Jake's car, New Moon, p 376. This is a short series of dribbles about how Bella kissing Jacob in his car that night Alice came back, would have changed everything)_

If I turned my face to the side—if I pressed my lips against his bare shoulder...I knew without any doubt what would follow. It would be very easy. There would be no need for explanations tonight.

But could I do it? Could I betray my absent heart to save my pathetic life?

I'd been trying so hard these past few months. In the beginning especially. But now...lately, it felt less like the chore it had been, less like the promise I'd made to that emptiness where _he_ used to be. That emptiness that would stay empty, regardless, always. But around it, and perhaps enough to cover it, to shadow it even—there was something else. _Someone_ else.

Less like the chore it had been—Jacob made it so much easier to get up in the mornings. And wasn't that love?

_But is it love enough?_ asked the keeper of the emptiness, that part in me that gave me the voice.

My sun, my air. Jacob felt like breathing. He made me whole. If I could commit—if I could give my all—then yes, surely that was love enough?

Slowly, I turned my face to the side and brushed my lips against Jacob's bare shoulder. He froze for one long second—I could see goosebumps erupting on him where I breathed on his soft skin—and then his arms tightened around me, the tendons flexing beneath his russet skin.

"Bella?" His voice sent a shiver down my spine. It was low and husky...and so tender. Like he'd been waiting years just to say my name.

My Jacob.

I raised my head. He was already waiting.

He'd always been waiting.

In the pauses between my heart beats I could feel the hole in my chest prick around the edges, dissatisfied because I was being forged anew—forged to Jacob.

I only saw her because I had to lean back to breathe. She was still and white, a carved statue on my front lawn—her eyes were fiercely black, and her fury was plain even though her face seemed suddenly so foreign.

"Jake!"

He saw her the same moment I did. They locked eyes, and then he was shaking.

"It's a Cullen!" he said, spitting the surname like it was wretched.

My chest flared hopefully. Her features were so otherwordly. Hard to doubt, even through the shade of glass. Hard to mistake. Real.

How long had I wanted to see one of them?

"Go! Go! Drive!"

The voice surprised me. It was so loud. But more than that...it was my own.

* * *

2

"Jake?"

Ugh, Billy. If he had any sense he'd just leave me the hell alone. Wasn't it enough that Sam had ordered me to stay here, imprisoned in my own house? Did my father really have to contribute to my torture?

I heard him roll to a stop in front of my door. He didn't open it.

"Bella phoned," he said. He sounded oddly satisfied.

What, was he enjoying my pain now? My own father. Sam I could understand—he had never gotten over the fact that Bella knew everything—but my own dad?

"She's on her way over," Billy said. He still sounded stoutly chipper.

On her way to La Push? Hadn't expected that. I'd thought, now that _he_ was back...

The bed frame vibrated convulsively. For a minute I thought, _Jeez, an earthquake, _here_?_ Then I caught on. Oh, yeah, me.

Probably she was coming here to tell me that she couldn't see me any more. I hadn't really expected anything else. The bloodsucker wouldn't want me anywhere near her.

I breathed in through my nose, counted to three, then breathed out through my mouth. But the breath stuck when I remembered it had been Bella who'd taught me that—she'd read it somewhere.

Deep breathing, huh. _No_ breathing would be preferable at this point.

"Jake? Did you hear?"

"Sure, sure."

"She's coming with Charlie. We're going fishing."

Ah, that would explain why he sounded so happy. Fishing, great. But why was Bella coming here with Charlie? Wouldn't she want to leave right after? Maybe not. Maybe she'd want to stay and talk, try to soothe me. Yeah, that was it. She wouldn't want to leave me writhing in a pit of agony over her departure.

Two voices responded to this thought:

_Well, too late._

And: _She doesn't want you hurting._

"I'll let you know when they get here," Billy said, before rolling away. The squeak of his wheelchair sounded smug.

_Oh great Jacob_, I thought, grimacing as I glared at the stupid homework that couldn't distract me. _A _smug_ wheelchair. Really, you've outdone yourself, reading agendas into ordinary household sounds..._

I could remember Bella's household sounds. Charlie snoring, Bella breathing, the springs in the couch downstairs, the clatter of her doing the washing up. I could remember the smells, too—her room, her hair, her skin, the way they combined with my smells.

The future I'd seen had all but shrivelled away, but there was nothing _he_ could do about the past. Maybe I'd find a way to let him know that...to let him know that, no matter what he put between us, she didn't want me hurting. Even though it was much too late.

He couldn't erase me. I wouldn't let him.

I threw my pen onto the desk (it left a dent) and strode from my room. _She_ couldn't erase me either.

* * *

I waited until Charlie had cut the engine before I sauntered over to the door. Billy had beaten me. He rolled down to the cruiser ahead of me, smiling away half of his face. He'd always been sort of strange but this jubilation was offensive. It was like he wasn't worried about my emotional well-being at all.

_Hey, way to go! Thanks dad!_

I snorted to myself. Bella looked from Billy to me at the sound; the smile on her face was tentative and a little apologetic. I didn't even try to pretend to smile back; the heat was rolling across my skin, breaking in waves around my neck. I shut my eyes, concentrating. _Don't phase now_ I told myself. _Wait till he's with her..._

The heat didn't breach the breaking point like it usually did, it just continued to swell around me—glowing.

"Jake?"

Bella?

My eyes flew open. And how couldn't they, when she was asking for me?

Everything inside me came undone as I stared at the familiar heart-shaped face, the full lips, the slight frown between the serious eyebrows. All the lines that held me to my life were sliced apart in swift cuts, like clipping the strings to a bunch of balloons. My name, my _self_—disconnected from me in that second—_snip, snip, snip_—and floated up into space.

I was not left drifting. A new string held me where I was.

Not one string, but a million. Not strings, but steel cables. A million steel cables all tying me to one thing—to the very center of the universe.

I could see that now—how the universe swirled around this one point. I'd never seen the symmetry of the universe before, but now it was plain.

The gravity of the earth no longer tied me to the place where I stood.

It was the girl with the wide brown eyes that held me there now.

Bella.

"Jake? Are you okay?"

Seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years. That was how time usually worked. Right? But it felt very strange suddenly. Not so much like it had stopped—more like it hadn't ever existed. Or that it shouldn't. Or that it didn't matter either way, as long as _she_ was there.

She stared at me with obvious anxiety. There was a little frown between her eyebrows—the worry frown. Always worrying about everyone and everything. It had bothered me before, but now it was agony. I didn't want her worrying—well, maybe over me. Or, well, no, not at all.

Conflicting.

"Jake?" she asked again, and took a faltering step forward. She looked so sad.

"Bella?" I asked stupidly, but I didn't know what else to say. What else was there to say, anyway?

She and her father exchanged a long look before he took off after Billy. As soon as they disappeared around the little house, she took another step forward. Plaintively. The wind shook through her hair. Strawberries, cream.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered.

And that brought it all crashing back, not that it mattered anymore. Him, he. Edward. Her vampire. My broken throbbing heart.

I didn't understand how that could be, though. The cables felt so strong. Stronger than anything, stronger than everything. Could she cut them? Could he?

"I had to go after him, please understand that," she whispered, when I didn't respond. "Even though...I wanted to stay," she added, and the blood flashed in her cheeks.

I was nodding, not because I agreed but because the little frown was still there.

"Are they...back now?"

It didn't _sound_ like me, but it was me. The part of me that wanted that worry frown to go away. The part that was panicking because her eyes looked wet.

_Did it again. _

Bella's cheeks drained again, and the worry frown deepened. "They were."

"Were?"

She nodded slowly, dropping her gaze to the dirt. She looked doubtful.

"He left again, didn't he?" The words shook in my mouth; I had to spit them out.

She shook her head, once, twice, and her cheeks glowed red again. "No." She breathed the word. Why did she look so guilty? "He wanted to stay." Still a whisper. "But I asked him to go."

There was no ground beneath my feet any more; nothing holding me but her next answer.

"You asked?" There was no air in my words. "Why?"

* * *

3

"You asked?" Jacob's voice was faint with disbelief. "Why?"

I opened my mouth to respond. There were so many reasons, and so many of them I couldn't explain.

_It's love enough._

_I don't mind the sun sometimes._

_I could stake a claim._

"I love you."

Emphasis on _you_; late, but I hope it's okay.

* * *

4.

What happens in Italy stays in Italy.

Apparently.

I'd held her very tightly for the longest time; the fault lines that Alice had been thinking about had ruptured and she'd cried. I'd held her as tightly as I could, which wasn't even a thousandth of the potential in my dead arms. I could have held tighter and how badly I had wanted to...even if it would have cost everything.

_You can't think like that any more_. Sternly, this voice, and cruel.

Because it had cost everything anyway. I hadn't held her tightly enough and now I couldn't hold her at all. _Never again_. This thought spun out into a thousand, no, hundreds of thousands of stabs of pain. _Never again, never again._

_Bella, we're leaving _I'd said, all those miserable months ago.

_Edward, I can't_ she'd replied.

It felt like an immediate response to me, maybe because there hadn't been anything between then and now. Nothing but darkness, and now it was all that remained.

And yet.

_Wait!_ She'd called out and reached for me once. Perhaps she would do so again.

I could wait.

* * *

5.

"I don't know, Bella. I don't like this."

Jacob eyed me with obvious scepticism. He was bare-chested as usual, the wind toying with his short, inky hair. He'd wanted to grow it out for me but I'd convinced him that it honestly didn't matter to me.

"It'll be fine. You're with me this time, remember?"

My joke fell several paces short of its mark, maybe because my voice was a little breathless with dread. I smiled anyway. He didn't buy it.

"Still," he said, trying to be bracing about it—to blow it off, to keep it casual. "There's no guarantee..."

His dark eyes flickered away from my face and down the side of the cliff, to the black water beating far below. The ocean was calm and the air was still except for small whips of wind. The sun almost broke through the cloud cover.

I knew the anxiety I was putting Jacob through, and there really was no logical way to explain it—but I had to do it, and do it the way Jake and I had originally intended: as a thrill, together. An adventure. So, for the sake of the deep gash of shadow evident in his face, I tried to explain it one last time. But he beat me.

"I can understand why you did it...the last time." He grimaced; he hated having to bring up those days, even though it wasn't more than six weeks ago. "But, if things have changed like you said, then why...?"

Of course, I'd explained to him about the voice, and why I'd gone crazy like that. At the time, I'd thought it was one of the more chivalrous things I'd done toward Jacob—total honesty, total openness. But I wasn't sure I wasn't going to regret it if he kept doubting me this way.

"I mean," he revised quickly, spotting my facial expression, "if you want to hear Edward's voice, then _call_ him. But don't do crazy stuff--"

"Jake, I don't want to hear his voice," I interrupted. Speaking of Edward inevitably led to a discussion of what had happened a week ago, and I didn't have the strength to reiterate my position on that. "I've told you why. I want to do this _with you_. Please, believe me."

It was an automatic thing: our hands reached for each other without consciously making the decision. His skin burned mine, and he pulled me in close, closer than he had before; I had trouble breathing, but his physicality wasn't half of it. There was a new intimacy in his embrace.

"Together," he whispered. Then he tucked me into his side, took three bounds, and we leapt.

* * *

"Are you okay, Jake? You look pale."

I gave her a sour look, then pulled on a lock of her salty hair. "Oh gee, I wonder why." I rolled my eyes, tightening the blanket around her. I didn't want her catching a cold or something. Yeah, it was warmer today, but it was _still cold_.

"There was never any danger," she said, smiling, twisting a little in my embrace to pointedly kiss my shoulder. "As promised," she added, laughing now.

I smiled, rueful because I couldn't help but be happy when she was.

"Say," she said suddenly, now frowning a little, "aren't you supposed to smell like wet dog?"

I huffed and held her even tighter. She couldn't know how much it meant to be, that she could make stupid jokes like that. There was a deep relief in having her know everything, and the best part was, now that I had imprinted, Sam could say squat about it.

She laughed like she could read my mind. And maybe she could. I didn't even care.

* * *

6.

Hearing her laugh like that, _seeing_ her laugh like that—it did strange things to my heart.

It made me happy, and it tormented me. There was no way to describe the way it felt. Like, where my heart had come alive, it had now mutated into a wretched, cold thing. Reverting back to its original state, except now it was shattered beyond repair. Ah, it truly did hurt. Physical pain. As cold as the transformation had burned.

Blistering coldness. Maybe that was the best way to describe it.

He kissed her then—of course he kissed her then. I would have. Her laugh was yet another endless mystery of her wonder. How could you not want to share in her happiness? How could you not try to take it and make it your own?

I was close enough to hear the murmur of her heart beats. Her heart beating was, truly, the only thing that had drawn me this far from the shadows. It was such a constant sound. It had timed my existence before, it could not stop doing so now. Even if its owner was unaware of it, it held me entirely. Inextricably.

Around me, the green forest was silent. If I stayed for much longer, the dog would notice the stillness. I'd misjudged his senses before, but I would not do so again.

_He hears nothing else._

Their kiss had deepened. I was close enough that I felt it in his mind.

And, almost inevitably, the thought in my own head ran: _You wouldn't have heard anything else, either. _

She was so close to him. Jacob felt their bodies mould together. Neither giving in nor out; equals. His heart was stronger and beat faster; hers fluttered beautifully, and together it formed a symphony.

He gasped. I heard it all the way to where I stood, as rooted as any one of the trees. I knew, then, that I had to leave. It was only right. But if I closed my eyes...if I ignored his heart...then it was almost like it was _me_...

Her hand cupped the small of his back, forcing him even closer. Not that she needed force—he moved willingly, and she curled tightly into him. Jacob felt the silk smoothness of the bare skin of her back, and ran his hands up.

It was her turn to gasp. The colour on her face was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen.

_You must leave!_

In my mind was nothing else but the furore of Jacob's anticipation; in my heart was an emptiness that swallowed the world whole. I tried to clutch the tree, to keep me there, to keep the sanity that was fast slipping away.

It was not up to the task.

* * *

The sound was thunderous; it reverberated through the forest, louder because everything was so quiet.

_It's not supposed to be still like that_ I thought, stupidly, before I realized what was going on.

"Filthy bloodsucker!"

"Edward?"

* * *

I wanted to leave. I wanted to run and hide like the disgusting animal I was.

But she called me.

_Finally_. The relief that washed over me was almost paralysing.

"Edward?"

_I've been waiting._

My legs moved of their own accord. _Finally_ my heart repeated. _Finally I will be alive again._

* * *

"_Jacob no!_"

But what could I do? It felt like I was trapped—trapped in my own slow, useless human body. Too weak to do anything to stop what was about to happen. Too weak to move fast enough, too weak to save the ones I loved.

Their roars were so different, yet so similar. Different because one was a soft snarl of velvet and the other the fury of a streaming river, similar because both sounds were bestial. There was no trace of the human behind each in the sound.

"_No! No! No!_"

I was screaming, struggling forward. It felt so familiar, maybe because this was my ultimate nightmare.

"_Bella!_"

A different shout this time, but I couldn't focus on that. I wasn't spared the details with a wave of blackness: I saw everything. It happened very quickly.

Edward danced between Jacob and I. Jacob lunged. My shout off-set Edward's strategy, and like a snake uncoiling, Jacob smashed into us both.

That was when it went black, and that was when the pain began. I heard two people speaking, both voices rough with angst. _Calm down_, I thought. _Please, calm down. Everything will be fine. I'm fine; look, the pain is going away..._

* * *

"Bella! Bella, please!"

A million steel cables. I could feel them pull away, up, up, as the light behind her brown eyes dimmed. She looked...so peaceful.

"Bella!"

"She's dying!" Edward shouted.

Funny, I thought, without looking up—how could I look away? How could I ever look away? What else was there to see?--funny how I hadn't ever seen _this_ before. Like they were streaming from her eyes, her heart, her very center, twisted into mine like a complicated rope: more cables.

"Bella, no!" His voice no longer pled the soulless abyss he believed in; it was commanding, like it was stating a fact. _Bella—no. _

"Save her," I said.

He probably couldn't even hear me anymore. And his teeth were at her throat.

* * *

A/N: I'm not Team Jacob, I wrote this for a friend. I might add more later; watch this space :) Btw, the characters belong to Ms Meyer.


End file.
